


Crowned with Lilies and Laurel

by Aboutnothingness (Thesherlockholmes)



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: (seriously so much poetry), Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Internal Monologue, Internalized Homophobia, Misogyny, Poetry, Purple Prose, fem!queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29991963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesherlockholmes/pseuds/Aboutnothingness
Summary: Sweet voices all ringing in a chorus like sirens: a moniker, a warning. Oh, yes, be warned you fair ladies of these women for into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.The secrets and loneliness of being on the road.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Crowned with Lilies and Laurel

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this in my drafts for three months—this may also be a prologue, maybe.

Into the darkness they go, the wise and  
the lovely. Crowned  
with lilies and with laurel they go; but I  
am not resigned.  
– _Dirge without Music_ , Edna St. Vincent Millay

-

1979

Four women waking in sweat soaked sheets. Harsh, white light streaming in the windows, always; whatever town this is, whatever country. Sprawled out on the top floor of a hotel, rock idols for a world looking for vicarious living—unending sex, men, outrageous fun. And here—two coming off last night’s high, two nursing hangovers—there is seemingly little to worry about all alone on the unending road; crowds cheering, voices sweet –

Sweet voices all ringing in a chorus like sirens: a moniker, a warning. Oh, yes, be warned you fair ladies of these women for into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. A truth unspoken, an image played up—women all egregiously desired, depending on your view.

(An image: women all crowned in roses, otherwise bare, for aren't they a fairer breed? As one looks on endlessly, as one counts the seconds like money as candle wax stains a rose oak side table—losing and finding love in the dark of night.)

Champagne-full glasses on one nightstand, on another a tumbler and a picture frame, on another a book, and still another a magazine. Clothes littering carpeted floor: trousers entangling trousers, skirts tossed by skirts, lingerie soaked in scent; perfume and something more. Vanilla, orange, rose, and slick—salty, sweet. It tastes lovely on the tongue even bitter and lyrics are fun to shock with: _come on, so heavy, I can feel when you break me!_

Women are put on a pedestal of piety, and simple facts are ignored, neglected.

Let out a shuddering breath at my hand and let me hear.

The song going on the record player last night, when she was on top of me, Freddie remembers—mind coming around into the day, thought returning in slow rivulets—was that old one, that _you give me fever_ —how outrageously divine!

Do make it look lovely, darling, and don't mind the crushing ache. Being alone is one thing and being alone with one, then another, and another, endlessly, something else entirely. The feeling of nothing filling a void one has no name for, no definition. Walking a strange territory, a foreign land, lessons learned over and over—no one believes that girls in Paris are any sweeter than in America or anywhere else, and it isn't as if sweet matters, necessarily. That, at least, is what Freddie tries continually to convince herself of, writing lines upon lines of thought and sour feeling—the truth, after all, is that upon the writing it ceased to be a feeling, became art. Over and over and over, these sorrowful attempts.

Through another door a dark haired, pale skinned woman sleeps unerringly through the morning, gangling limbs seen here and there coming out from beneath the sheets—alone. The book on the nightstand is entitled Perelandra and the hands are calloused (after a long time spent blistered), supple, willowy as the rest of her body. Malignant history, hands wrapping around an empty stomach—at turns from black world weariness, worry, or the last never-leaving vestiges of old and thorough illness. Such an old memory now, everything swept neatly under the rug—and my, isn't the floor beneath washed grey with the dust? My dear, you’ll never be Griselda and you’ll _never_ be elegant—round and round the old thought goes, taunting all the while; perfect mother, perfect wife is not to be found here. When she rises, the head will hurt horribly and light will sting the eyes.

The punctual one is up, going over accounts—there have been far too many rooms wrecked, too many windows and vases smashed and shattered. What a bill to pay! The morning Bloody Mary does wonders for a headache, one or two—hardly makes a difference when they wear off come a five o’clock whiskey. There's tea, too, and burnt toast brought up by room service; one is not afforded everything, even when expenses mean little. She scrapes off black crumbs onto a plate and wonders over the foreign headlines.

Coming around with a gravel-edged groan, she combs gold hair out of her eyes. The light really is too bright, a bit too much akin to a vision of heaven—of sudden, not-so-glorious death. The sheet is pulled up around her naked shoulders against the chill. Tea? She’ll have to call. Legs and abdomen all relaxed as they are after a good night, a _fun_ night. The bed is empty, but the clothes by the bed are too many: she’s not left then, just gone somewhere else in the suite. What was she? A waitress? She probably has work to get to, that drudge of normal life. That is nearly a relic, her own Cornwall past.

And thus all the girls come tolling in; like tick – tick – ticker tape it passes through one mind—and then through the second, the third, the last.

Who knows, they all worry.

Three answer: absolutely bloody no one; the fact of dazzling truth, doled out gradually—lose half the audience and you lose the world.

And the one, dark haired, golden skinned, leans over to light a cigarette, hand trailing along the breast of her lover: well, she thinks, it was always obvious, wasn’t it?

All singing the chorus, over and over: _my thoughts are wrong. My thoughts are wrong. The thought that my thoughts are wrong is wrong –_

But isn't there enviably more pleasure this way? Hand and tongue and plastic affixture?

Up, up, up, up, long legs all slipping from the sheets—leave the lover to sleep, my darling, they need not know the night’s truth, the hazy recollection. All slow-beating lonely hearts thinking: crowned with lilies and laurel they go, but I am not resigned.

And begging all in hypocritical turn, they still are all delicate flowers in the end; there's sobbing there undertow:

Please, don't go –

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to OatRevolution for beta reading!


End file.
